In search of another relay1 between text and movement, For Claude Shannon uses grammatical dependencies between words in a statement2 from computer science pioneer Claude Elwood Shannon to recover a linguistic structure that, in turn, generates inexhaustible possibilities for choreographic sequences. Twenty-four discreet movement “atoms” for arms and legs serve as a movement lexicon from which a fixed number of inputs is randomly chosen each time the piece is performed. For each performance, dancers must assemble and learn one particular choreographic outcome among the billions possible that cannot be rehearsed. They rely on the intimacy they have acquired with the fixed linguistic structure of the text and the intimacy they have acquired with one another. Engaging the ressources of both their working and long-term memory, uncovering to the audience the pronouncement of the unknown, concealing the predicaments of entropy, they relentlessly switch circuits.
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Shannon’s masters thesis, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits, 1937, introduced seminal ideas underlying the design of all digital computers. ↩
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“The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point.” A Mathematical Theory of Communication, 1948. ↩
Conception · Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard
With Marco D’Agostin, Cynthia Koppe, Liz Santoro, and Teresa Silva
Music · Greg Beller
Costumes · Reid Bartelme
Lighting and technical direction · Sarah Marcotte
Production · Fanny Lacour
Co-production of CDC Atelier de Paris-Carolyn Carlson, Paris Réseau Danse, Théâtre de Vanves-Scène conventionnée pour la danse, CCN-Ballet de Lorraine, The Kitchen, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, DRAC Île-de-France; With the support of Adami, Arcadi Île-de-France, Centquatre-Paris and ménagerie de verre Studiolab program.
Le principe d'incertitude / Liz Santoro & Pierre Godard are associated artists at CDC Atelier de Paris-Carolyn Carlson.
